Israel-Hamas truce December 1 updates | Renewed Gaza fighting stretches into second day after truce collapses

A protester with a Palestinian flag self-immolated on Friday outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, injuring a security guard who attempted to intervene, authorities said.

The person, whom officials did not identify, is in critical condition, Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said at a news conference. The guard’s condition was not immediately clear.

“We believe this building remains safe, and we do not see any threat here,” the chief said. “We believe that was an act of extreme political protest.” 

The protester arrived around 12:17 p.m. at the office building, which houses the consulate as well as several businesses, and used gasoline, police said.

The FBI’s Atlanta office said it was coordinating with local law enforcement. The consulate and the Israeli embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

- Reuters

The White House said on Friday it believed Israel will allow humanitarian aid trucks to enter Gaza after a lull due to resumed fighting between Israel and Hamas militants, but the number of deliveries will likely be reduced.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, citing reports from Israel, said Israel had agreed to resume letting truck deliveries through at the urging of the United States.

But he said truck deliveries would likely be reduced to dozens a day rather than the hundreds of trucks that were getting into Gaza daily during a week-long pause in fighting that ended on Thursday.

Mr. Kirby said Gaza needs much more aid, but that the decision to resume aid deliveries, after stringent inspections, “looks like a good sign going forward.”

U.S. officials are pushing for a resumption of a pause in fighting in order to extract more hostages held in Gaza by Hamas. Kirby said Hamas was to blame for the breakdown in the truce. “It’s because of Hamas that this pause ended,” Mr. Kirby said. “The onus is on Hamas.”

- Reuters

The United States is working on a plan with Israel to minimize harm to civilians in any military operation in southern Gaza, a senior U.S. official said on Friday as Israel’s military resumed its bombardment of the territory following the collapse of a week-old truce with Hamas.

Israel’s government agreed that any operation in the south will not look like it did in the north and its military will designate areas where civilians will not be harmed, the official said following U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to the region, where Washington’s top diplomat met with Israeli officials.

The official added that the U.S. expects there will be no full-scale assault on Khan Younis and Rafah as there was on Gaza City.

Washington has urged Israel to narrow the zone of combat and clarify where Palestinian civilians can seek safety in southern Gaza, officials have said.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity on Friday, said entire neighborhoods in southern Gaza will be designated as deconfliction zones that are safe for civilians, though some may still have to leave their homes if they are in areas where Hamas fighters are deeply embedded.

The United States will continue to talk with Israel about how to implement the measures, said the official.

- Reuters

Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group attacked several Israeli army posts along the two countries’ border and Israel shelled a village in southern Lebanon on Friday, killing two Lebanese citizens, officials said.

Israel’s military said it hit the sources of the fire directed at the military.

Lebanese security officials, meanwhile, said a woman and her son died when Israeli shells hit their home in the southern village of Houla. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

- AP

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told his Emirati counterpart Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan that Israel restarting its attacks on Gaza after the collapse of a week-long truce was “very negative”, his office said on Friday.

The Turkish and Emirati leaders met on the sidelines of the COP28 summit in Dubai. Erdogan also met the prime ministers of Japan and Italy to discuss Gaza, as well as with his counterpart from Uzbekistan, the presidency said.

“President Erdogan, who noted that the restarting of clashes was very negative, said Turkey was working to achieve a lasting ceasefire and for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza,” it said in a statement, adding Erdogan also said Turkey was doing its best to stop Israel’s “massacre” but that the Muslim world needed to act in unison.

- Reuters

A United Nations office said on Friday it was “seriously concerned” about a dramatic rise in Israel’s arrest of Palestinians and called for an investigation into allegations of torture in Israeli custody.

Israel has arrested more than 3,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the start of the Gaza war in early October and a record high number were being held without charge or trial, said a statement by the U.N. Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Within the span of two months, six Palestinian men have died in Israeli custody, the highest number of cases in such a short period in decades, it said.

- Reuters

Two people were killed on Friday during Israeli shelling of the border town of Houla in southern Lebanon, according to Hezbollah’s television channel Al-Manar.

Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel traded fire across the Lebanon-Israel border earlier on Friday after a week-long truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip collapsed. Hezbollah is an ally of Hamas, which rules Gaza.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

- Reuters

Israeli President Herzog held a meeting with Prime Minister Modi on the sidelines of the COP28 UN Climate Conference in Dubai.

“The (Indian) Prime Minister expressed to the President his strong condemnation of the massacre and acts of terrorism committed by Hamas,” a communication from Herzog’s spokesperson said.

Herzog called upon all the world leaders to join hands in the humanitarian effort to return all the hostages home “swiftly and safely”.

He “appealed to the Prime Minister of India to do all he could to promote the issue”, the communication added.

- PTI

Israel’s military was aware of Hamas ‘ plan to launch an attack on Israeli soil over a year before the devastating Oct. 7 operation that killed hundreds of people, The New York Times reported Friday.

It was the latest in a series of signs that top Israeli commanders either ignored or played down warnings that Hamas was plotting the attack, which triggered a war against the Islamic militant group that has devastated the Gaza Strip.

The Times said Israeli officials were in possession of a 40-page battle plan, code-named “Jericho Wall,” that detailed a hypothetical Hamas attack on southern Israeli communities.

The Israeli military declined to comment on the report, saying it was “currently focused on eliminating the threat from the terrorist organization Hamas.”

- AP

Hamas on Friday said it had offered to hand over the bodies of a mother and her two sons — one of them a baby — in talks to extend a now-expired truce.

Shiri Bibas, her 10-month-old son Kfir and his four-year-old brother Ariel, along with their father Yarden, have become emblematic of the October 7 attacks due to the age of baby Kfir.

Earlier this week, Hamas’s armed wing announced that Shiri, Kfir and Ariel had been killed in an Israeli bombing before the now-lapsed truce went into effect — a claim Israel’s military has said it is investigating, but has yet to confirm.

- AFP

The United States will continue to press for extending a truce in Gaza, the White House said, as intense fighting erupted once again in the Israel-Hamas war.

“We continue to work with Israel, Egypt, and Qatar on efforts to extend the humanitarian pause in Gaza,” a White House National Security Council spokesperson said.

The prospects of reestablishing a truce were being stymied because “Hamas has so far failed to produce a list of hostages that would enable a further extension of the pause,” the NSC spokesperson said.

- AFP

Some 109 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza so far since a week-long truce expired in the early hours of Friday and the war resumed, the territory’s health ministry said in a statement on Friday.

Spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said in a statement that the military had also tallied “hundreds of wounded in the Israeli aggression”.

- Agencies

The United States is preparing to impose a visa ban on Israeli settlers involved in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, a senior US State Department official said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when they met Thursday in Jerusalem that Washington was readying the sanctions, the source said on the condition of anonymity.

The visa ban could be imposed as early as next week, he added, without disclosing the number of individuals who would be affected.

- AFP

srael resumed its deadly bombardment of Gaza on Friday, vowing to destroy suspected Hamas positions in the densely-inhabited Palestinian territory after a week-long truce expired despite global calls for its extension.

Israel accused militants of firing a rocket shortly before the pause was due to come to an end, but the UN expressed dismay at the resumption of hostilities.

The Palestinian health ministry in the Gaza Strip said more than 60 people had been killed in the morning after the truce ended.

- AFP

King Abdullah II told the UN’s COP28 climate talks in Dubai that “we cannot talk about climate change in isolation from the humanitarian tragedies unfolding around us”.

“In Gaza, over 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes. Tens of thousands have been injured or killed in a region already on the front lines of climate change,” he told a gathering of world leaders.

The Gaza war has been a major talking point at COP28, where delegations from around the world will try to hammer out a fresh agreement to tackle the climate crisis.

- AFP

The United Nations said it deeply regretted the resumption of deadly hostilities in the Gaza Strip on Friday following the end of a truce between Israel and Hamas, calling the situation “catastrophic”.

The UN also said it was troubled by indications that Israel could seek to expand its military offensive inside the Palestinian territory.

“I deeply regret that military operations have started again in Gaza,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on X, formerly Twitter.

“I still hope that it will be possible to renew the pause that was established. The return to hostilities only shows how important it is to have a true humanitarian ceasefire.”

- AFP

The entry of aid and fuel trucks for the Gaza Strip at Egypt’s Rafah crossing halted today, Egyptian security and aid sources said, as Israel resumed its military campaign following a week-long truce.

The quantity of aid delivered through the Rafah crossing had increased during the truce, though aid officials said it was still far less than what was needed.

Rafah has been the only entry point for humanitarian relief destined for Gaza, with deliveries beginning on October 21.

- Reuters

The Biden administration has informed Israel that Washington will impose visa bans in the next few weeks on Israeli extremist settlers engaged in violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, a senior State Department official said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet have let them know that the United States will take its own action against an undisclosed number of individuals. - Reuters

Qatar on Friday urged swift international action to stop violence in the Gaza Strip after renewed Israeli bombardment of the territory at the end of a truce which the Gulf emirate mediated.

The Qatari foreign ministry, in a statement, said it stresses that continued bombing at the end of the pause “complicates mediation efforts and exacerbates the humanitarian catastrophe in the Strip, and... calls on the international community to move quickly to stop the violence. - AFP

Iran on Friday blamed Israel and the United States for a resumption of fighting in the Gaza Strip.

“After killing more than 15,000 Palestinians, the Zionist vampires have started a new round of killing under the continued support of the American government,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. - AFP

UNICEF on Friday appealed for a lasting ceasefire to be implemented in Gaza, describing inaction as “an approval of the killing of children” after a week-old truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed.

“A lasting ceasefire must be implemented,” James Elder, spokesperon for UNICEF, told reporters via video link from Gaza. - Reuters

Renewed hostilities heightened concerns for the about 140 hostages who remain in Gaza, after more than 100 were freed as part of the truce.

The collapse of the cease-fire came a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli officials and urged them to do more to protect Palestinian civilians as they seek to destroy Hamas. Mr. Blinken was on his way Friday to the COP28 climate talks in Dubai, where he was to meet with Arab and other leaders.

It was not clear to what extent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will heed the appeals of the United States, Israel’s most important ally. Netanyahu’s office said Friday that Israel “is committed to achieving the goals of the war: Releasing the hostages, eliminating Hamas and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to the residents of Israel”. - AP

Fourteen Palestinians were killed and dozens more were injured in Israeli strikes during the first two hours since the truce in Gaza expired, Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry said on Friday, according to the ministry’s telegram account. 

- Reuters

World leaders descended on Dubai for UN climate talks on Friday, under pressure to step up efforts to limit global warming as the Israel-Hamas conflict casts a shadow over the summit.

UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan greeted Britain’s King Charles III, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, French President Emanuel Macron and other leaders at the sprawling Expo City Dubai complex in the sun-soaked Gulf metropolis.

- AFP

Residents say Israel has dropped leaflets over parts of southern Gaza, urging people to leave homes east of the town of Khan Younis. The leaflets also warned that Khan Younis was now a “dangerous battle zone.”

The leaflets signaled that Israel was preparing to widen its offensive, which has so far focused largely on the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of thousands of people fled northern Gaza earlier in the war, with many taking shelter in Khan Younis and other cities in the south. - AP

14 Palestinians were killed and dozens more were injured in Israeli strikes during the first two hours since the truce in Gaza expired, Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Friday, according to the Ministry’s Telegram account.

Most of those killed were women and children, he added. 

- Reuters

Talks between Israel-Hamas aimed at renewing a Gaza truce by mediators Qatar and Egypt are continuing despite renewed fighting. 

“Negotiations are still ongoing with Qatari and Egyptian mediators despite the resumption of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza,” the source said asking to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the talks, after intense overnight discussions failed to secure an eighth ceasefire day.

- AFP

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday it had facilitated the release and transfer of 19 Palestinian detainees from Israeli detention centres to Ramallah.

The number announced by the ICRC typically includes only those who the organisation is directly responsible for releasing.

- Reuters

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Hamas did not agree to release further hostages, infringing on terms of a truce, and that Israel remained committed to achieving its objectives as fighting resumed.

“With the resumption of fighting we emphasise: The Israeli government is committed to achieving the goals of the war - to free our hostages, to eliminate Hamas, and to ensure that Gaza will never pose a threat to the residents of Israel,” it said.

- Reuters

At least six Palestinians were killed Friday morning in an Israeli air raid on Rafah city in the south of Gaza, Hamas-run health ministry confirmed.

Elsewhere, two children were killed in air raids on Gaza City, said Fadel Naim, a doctor with Al-Ahli hospital, as fighting resumed shortly after the expiration of a seven-day truce between Israel and Hamas militants.

- AFP

The Israeli military says fighter jets are striking Hamas targets in Gaza after weeklong truce expired. 

- AP

Israel’s military said it had resumed combat operations in the Gaza Strip minutes after a temporary truce with Hamas expired Friday, blaming the militant group for breaking the cease-fire.

The truce expired at 7 a.m (0500 GMT) Friday. The halt in fighting began a week ago, on November 24. It initially lasted for four days, and then was extended for several days with the help of Qatar and fellow mediator Egypt.

- AP

Sounds of gunfire and several explosions were heard in northern Gaza early on Friday, the Shehab News Agency, which is considered close to Hamas, reported on Telegram.

The news agency did not provide details. 

- Reuters

Israel’s missile defence system intercepted a rocket fired from Gaza on Friday, the Israeli military said, around an hour before a truce with Hamas was due to expire.

“Following the initial report regarding sirens sounded in communities near the Gaza Strip, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) Aerial Defense Array successfully intercepted a launch from the Gaza Strip,” the military said on its official Telegram account. The rocket was the first launched from Gaza since a missile fired shortly into the first day of a truce that has lasted seven days, the military confirmed.

There has been no official confirmation of any potential extension of the truce into an eighth day, though Hamas said it was open to the possibility and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged that the pause continue.

- AFP

17 Thai workers released from captivity by Hamas were greeted Thursday by family and friends, officials and journalists at Bangkok’s international airport. The 17 are among 23 Thais freed so far, with six left temporarily behind in Israel because doctors said they were not yet fit to travel. Thai officials says another nine Thai hostages are still being held in Gaza.

- AP

India has welcomed the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas and called for the immediate and unconditional release of those still held in captivity by the militant group, asserting that there can be no justifications for terrorism and hostage-taking.

A truce between Israel and Hamas entered its final hours on Friday as more hostages were freed from Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. The militant group said it was willing to extend the truce further, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for the pause to continue.

But there was no sign early on Friday morning of whether the two sides would reach terms to extend the halt in fighting for an eighth day, and Mr. Blinken also used a visit to Israel to urge that any resumption of military operations protect Palestinian civilians.

- AFP

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stepped up calls for Israel to comply with international law and spare civilians as it wages its war against Hamas in Gaza. Mr. Blinken, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials on his third visit to the region since the start of the war, said he hoped the cease-fire could be extended and more hostages could be released.

Mr. Blinken also said that if Israel resumes the war and moves against southern Gaza to pursue Hamas, it must do so in “compliance with international humanitarian law” and must have “a clear plan in place” to protect civilians. He said Israeli leaders understood that ”the massive levels of civilian life and displacement scale we saw in the north not be repeated in the south.”

- AP

The White House condemned Thursday’s deadly attack by two Palestinian gunmen on people waiting for buses along a main highway entering Jerusalem, saying the attack was “stark reminder” of the enemy Israel is facing.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the attack, which Hamas claimed responsibility for, “technically” didn’t violate the terms of the ongoing truce between Israel and Hamas, which only covers Gaza. Mr. Kirby also expressed hope that the truce, which was extended for a seventh day on Thursday, will be extended again.

- AP